But in true Calgary form, it’s gone as quickly as it arrives, and we’ve also had some nice weather for spending time outside.

Moses and Joshua (my parents’ dog, who were visiting for Easter)

Moses

Photo shoot crashers!

Now, regular readers might remember that Moses had his first ever porcupine encounter in January at this very same off-leash park (click here for the story). No real meeting occurred thanks to my frantic interception quick and graceful thinking, but it was close.

What I did not think of since was now Moses knows the scent for porcupine.

So, as we’re heading back to the car, that wasn’t my first thought when Moses scampered down an embankment. I figured maybe he’d spotted a squirrel or chipmunk – which he’ll go after, despite having no hope in hell at catching one. We’d already walked past that exact spot once without incident, and it was the middle of the afternoon, so I wasn’t initially concerned.

When I heard him breaking through thick brush, it hit me – what else have we seen in the park? A porcupine!

This time Moses had a head start. And a lower clearance to make it through the brush quicker.

By the time I caught up, the porcupine had wedged itself in the centre of a dense bush, back to Moses, and head down, hoping we’ll just leave him alone.

Porcupine defence strategy

Since I wasn’t as quick as I was last time, Moses had a few seconds to do whatever he was going to do to the porcupine without interruption.

And it was just as I had expected.

He sniffed it.

That’s it.

I got there and Moses looked at me, looked at the porcupine, wagged his tail, and looked back at me.

He was so thrilled he made a new friend. (The porcupine felt otherwise.)

So thrilled, he didn’t even notice he got these:

Still oblivious.

So I leashed him back up and we took our walk of shame back up the hill to the path.

Then I inspected the damage. Four quills. That’s it. LUCKY.

They weren’t in deep – barely hanging on – so I dealt with them then and there and pulled them out. Moses didn’t even wince.

Back in the parking lot, I did a full face and mouth inspection looking for more and found none.

Hardy a trace of mischief left

Since weekends are when I try to walk the dogs separately, Alma wasn’t there. And I’m glad. I really have no idea how she’d react to a porcupine – or to receiving a couple of quills – but I do know she’s not as easy going as Moses. I’m not keen to find out what she’d do.

Look at this adorable baby porcupine. A dog-porcupine interaction is rarely fatal for dogs, but frequently results in harm to the porcupine. I’d hate for one of my dogs to be the cause of that. Make sure if you have a dog/porcupine incident you make sure the porcupine is okay, too! There’s more than likely a local wildlife rehabilitation centre to call if not.

This post is part of the Mischief Monday blog hop – to see what everyone else has been up to, visit Snoopy’s Dog Blog here, My Brown Newfies here, or Alfie’s Blog here.

OUCH! My horse once sniffed at a porcupine, although he didn’t come out of it so lucky! He got a whole face full of quills! Poor thing! Glad your pup is ok! And hey, any time it snows, feel free to send it over to Ontario! We have had a good snowfall in a couple weeks, and my huskies are missing their glorious snow!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!

Wow! I’ve never encountered a porcupine. We have to watch for skunks in the spring when all of the animals are starting to wake up. Rodrigo woke up a skunk a bit too early and it took a while to clean him up, but we did.

Nature has certainly given the porcupine a good defense system. The point about making sure the porcupine doesn’t need help is a good one. Often dogs can do more damage to them than the human realizes.

Great post! Say, I’m a fine artist who paints a lot of animals and wild life and am in need of some animal photos to paint from. If any of your readers could send me some photos of their pets, I’d greatly appreciate it. (No obligation to buy, I promise) If you and your readers are interested, just shoot me an email at Samara@SamDoumArt.com

I would say he was lucky to get away with four. I have seen the results of encounters where it was a couple of hours of pulling quills out. I know they are up by our cabin, but luckily we haven’t run into any. Like you I always thought broad daylight was fairly safe. Guess I will rethink that.

Oh my. I don’t know what I’d do. I could see my dogs barreling full speed ahead to greet a new friend. My sister had two dogs that got pined in NH and they got it pretty good, since she had to take them to the vet.

Glad Moses didn’t get a face full and that he barely noticed those he had.

Yikes! That would freak me out because I have no doubt that my dog would not want to be the porcupine’s friend, nor would he walk away with just a few quills. So glad that Moses only had a few and they were easy to get out.